Ancient Indian Education: An Inquiry into its Origin, Development, and Ideals c4.138

c4.138

Besides the actual memorizing of the sacred books, we see that the teacher was in the habit of giving explanations when required by the pupil. We cannot say what this amounted to in the first place. In the case of the sacred books themselves many pupils were perhaps content simply to absorb their contents without fully understanding their meaning,¹ but when other subjects and sciences arose it would seem probable that explanation must have been given a much larger place. The *Sūtras* were composed in language so condensed that a considerable amount of explanation must have been necessary, and they were studied together with a commentary. In the Upanishads we find that the philosophic teaching given there is often illustrated by parables from nature, or stories like that of Nachiketas visiting the abode of the dead. And in later works like the Panchatantra and the Hitopadeśa we find stories and fables given a very important place in the inculcation of moral truths. India is, in fact, the home of fable and allegory. If the Brāhman teachers, as seems likely, made use of this form of teaching in instructing their pupils, there must have been something at least to interest and to relieve the monotony of the laborious process of learning by heart. The system of teaching was individual, and each pupil was separately instructed by the teacher, though there may have been occasions when the teacher explained something to all the pupils at the same time. There is a passage in Manu¹ which seems to imply that the son of the teacher sometimes helped his father by teaching in his father's stead, and perhaps from this arose the custom which we find in vogue in later times of the teacher being assisted in his work by some of the older pupils who acted as monitors. When the Brāhmanic system of education first arose writing was unknown in India, but later on, when writing came into use, the task of teaching it was added to the work of the teacher.